[ofcrpls]

There are those who cannot take vaccinations due to medical conditions and there are those who opt-out from vaccinations due to beliefs. Guess who suffers damage for no fault of their own ( not blaming the children of the parents who are making the choice ).

[zeveb]

> There are those who cannot take vaccinations due to medical conditions

Those folks are relatively rare though.

Seems to me that living surrounded by contagion is part of the human condition, and that all of us have the right to take action to protect ourselves (and our children) from that contagion, but no-one has the right to violently force someone else to protect himself.

[mobiplayer]

There's always a little chance of getting infected even with the vaccine.

Herd immunity makes that chance orders of magnitude smaller.

It's not about forcing people to protect themselves. It is about forcing people to not increase the chances of my kids dying of a completely avoidable issue, just because these other people believe in fairies.

Your freedom extends as far as where mine starts.

[Someone1234]

Children also cannot get the MMR until 12 months of age. So for the first year they're vulnerable to infection.

[nonbel]

>"Children also cannot get the MMR until 12 months of age."

This is a myth, see my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656462

PS. Wow, 4th time in this thread (currently ~5% of posts here are spreading this myth...)

[brazzy]

Except it is not a myth; bottle-fed babies will not have any maternal antibodies.

[nonbel]

No, this is the first I've heard that, but sounds like another myth made up to deal with the first one:

>"Since transplacental immunity and waning of maternally derived measles specific antibodies play an important role in determining the optimum age for vaccination of infants against measles..." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10829850

EDIT:

It looks like you may have heard about IgA maternal antibodies, which are not the relevant type here:

>"The vast majority of maternal antibodies are of the IgG isotype. In humans, maternal antibodies are preferentially transferred before birth transplacentally, and in animals of veterinary importance, preferentially through uptake of IgG in the intestine from colostrum within the first 24 h after birth. These passively acquired antibodies enter the bloodstream of offspring and act as a protective shield throughout the body in the same way as actively produced antibodies. Sometimes IgA antibodies contained in breast milk are also referred to as maternal antibodies. However, there are important differences in the action of passively transferred IgG and IgA antibodies. Upon transfer after birth, IgG antibodies are present in the bloodstream of the neonate in a finite amount that declines over time. These IgG antibodies suppress vaccine-induced immune responses. In contrast, IgA antibodies are continuously supplied through breast milk from the mother and protect the gastro-intestinal tract against pathogens without having an effect on the immune response. For the purpose of this review, the term “maternal antibodies” will be used for passively transferred IgG antibodies." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4165321/